Friday, November 9, 2012

Katie Dellamaggiore specifcally mentions walkng into a chess class being taught by teacher Elizabeth Vicary (since married, now known as Elizabeth Spiegel) and being totally captivated, even though she had not ever played chess before, and had no idea what she was talking about...

IS 318's class president found himself in "a huge fiscal crisis" when the Brooklyn school's principal announced $1 million in cuts that would threaten the top-rated chess club's tournament travels.

Pobo Efekoro, now a student at Forest Hills High School in Queens, was juggling school, class presidency and a budget that was about to put the brakes on the IS 318 chess team, which had won more national championships than any other in the country -- and out of an inner city school populated by low-income students. The team was considered "the Yankees of chess." That was when documentary producer and director Katie Dellmaggiore sought to capture the story on film in "Brooklyn Castle."

Efekoro and Dellmaggiore appeared on The Daily Show together Thursday to tell parts of the story, shedding light on how IS 318's chess team illustrates the importance of extracurricular activities and education beyond the core four.

Stewart took the opportunity to bring up issues with the federal No Child Left Behind law and emphasis on standardized testing.

"As a student, there's a program in this school that's clearly lighting up these children's hearts and minds and bringing out the absolute best in them and the first thing we do in that situation is say, 'Well that's the thing that has to go.'" Stewart says. "You're cutting the vital appendage, and spending all that money for the tests."

Filming the documentary allowed Dellmaggiore to see first hand how chess, and other non-core subjects, allowed teachers to educate and engage kids in a different way, she said. Efekoro added that his eighth grade teacher at the school was the best he'd ever had -- and there was no teaching to the test.

"The teachers work very hard, and for them to get targeted as being demonized as the problem for why our education is bad is absurd," Efekoro said. "The teachers are fabulous. And a lot of my teachers that I had, according to the city, they're bad. But the fact of the matter is, I love them."

New York City released, for the first time, in February a list of individual ratings of thousands of the city's schoolteachers -- a move that concluded a lengthy legal battle waged by the local teachers union and media. The Teacher Dat aReports rate more than 12,000 teachers who taught fourth through eighth grade English or math between 2007 and 2010 based on value-added analysis. Value-added analysis calculates a teacher's effectiveness in improving student performance on standardized tests -- based on past test scores. The forecasted figure is compared to the student's actual scores, and the difference is considered the "value added," or subtracted, by the teachers.

Controversy surrounding the release was widespread as tales surfaced of teachers who were perhaps unfairly rated poorly.
Forest Hills, where Efekoro now attends, has nearly 3,900 students, far above its intended capacity of 2,300 seats.
"And thats what's going on in the schools right now," Stewart says. "And you have these incredibly intelligent, passionate young people. What you guys are doing there is incredible, I give you all the respect in the world, it's tremendous."

New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- The beginning of India's history has been pushed back by more than 2,000 years, making it older than that of Egypt and Babylon. Latest research has put the date of the origin of the Indus Valley Civilisation at 6,000 years before Christ, which contests the current theory that the settlements around the Indus began around 3750 BC.

Ever since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the early 1920s, the civilisation was considered almost as old as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The finding was announced at the "International Conference on Harappan Archaeology", recently organised by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in Chandigarh.

Based on their research, BR Mani, ASI joint director general, and KN Dikshit, former ASI joint director general, said in a presentation: "The preliminary results of the data from early sites of the Indo-Pak subcontinent suggest that the Indian civilisation emerged in the 8th millennium BC in the Ghaggar-Hakra and Baluchistan area."

"On the basis of radio-metric dates from Bhirrana (Haryana), the cultural remains of the pre-early Harappan horizon go back to 7380 BC to 6201 BC."

Excavations had been carried out at two sites in Pakistan and Bhirrana, Kunal, Rakhigarhi and Baror in India.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.

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Well, I expect this will start a good rip-roaring argument in certain circles! For myself, I'm open to the idea. Take a look at this map from Wikipedia:

It is well established that people were living in the Iranian Plateau and making beautiful pottery/clay vessels dating to as early as c. 8000 BCE. I am no expert in this area, by any means, but I don't find it impossible to imagine migration from the Caspian Sea area to the coast on the Arabian Sea. Notice the location of the Indus area in relation to the ancient areas of Baluchistan and Sind. In fact, some late 19th century writers thought that chess originated in Sind (in today's world, southeast Pakistan)

Whenever I see Baluchistan in print, I think of Shar-i Sokhtah (spelled in myriad different ways) and the wonderful miraculously preserved wooden game board of 20-squares that was about 4300 years old. Notice on the map above the location of Shahr-e-Suchte (a/k/a the Burnt City) and Mohenjo Daro of the Indus civilization. I blogged about this remarkable gameboard, formed by the bodies of interwoven serpents carved into the wood, back in 2010:

Sorry, not the best photo, but it's right out of a print report from back in the 1970s when the news was first published - unfortunately, the source below did not cite to the original report:

A well-preserved wooden 20-squares gameboard (the serpent gameboard) was
excavated from Shar-i Sokhtah near the borderlands of Iran, Afghanistan and
Pakistan in the late 1970's I believe, and dated to about 2400 BCE. Also known
as the "Burnt City," Shar-i Sokhtah was a trading hub as well as a center of
decorative arts and crafts. Image: "Evidence of Western Cultural Connections
from a Phase 3 Group of Graves at Shar-i Sokhta", M. Piperno, S. Salvatori,
Mesopotamien und Sein Nachbarn, Band 1, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997,
pgs. 79-84, Tafel XXII. The illustration (Fig. 4) is described as "The wooden
gaming board found in grave IUP 731 at Shahr-i Sokhta. The board features an
engraved serpent [on a rectangular board] coiling around itself for 20 times,
thus producing 20 slots for the game." From June 10, 2010 blog "Author Fudging on Game Board Fragment in Article on Harappan Site".
The game of 20-squares was made famous when Woolley excavated the remains of a couple of different boards from the royal tombs of Ur, dated to roughly the same period as the gameboard from Shar-i Sokhtah.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

I don't know how anyone by now could not have heard of this fantastic documentary about Brooklyn IS's chess program and national championships teams! But, just in case, here's a current review which, most unfortunately, calls the school IS 314 -- not IS 318! I emailed the writer to alert her to this. Probably just a typo.

From the Seattle TimesOriginally published Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 3:02 PM

"Brooklyn Castle," directed by Katie Dellamaggiore, is an inspiring and delightful documentary about an unlikely school in Brooklyn that breeds chess champions. The film is playing at the Harvard Exit.

The highest-ranked junior-high chess team in the country — winner of an unprecedented 30 national titles — isn't ensconced at an elite private school. Instead, it's found at Brooklyn's prosaically named I.S. 314, an inner-city edifice where, the principal estimates, 70 to 75 percent of the students live below the poverty line. In Katie Dellamaggiore's inspiring and delightful documentary "Brooklyn Castle," we meet five of the team's members and several of their teachers; by its end, you'll be rooting for them all.

Like "Mad Hot Ballroom," "Spellbound" and others, "Brooklyn Castle" follows a familiar formula: Underdog kids face obstacles as they prepare for a big competition. In this case, it's the national chess championships, and the obstacles include the students' personal stories as well as school budget cuts so severe that the chess program is in danger of extinction. Alexis' immigrant parents put immense pressure on him to succeed beyond their own achievements; Rochelle struggles with being one of the few girls in a male-dominated sport; Patrick, who has attention deficit disorder, wonders if he'll ever be good enough for nationals. Energetic, redheaded chess teacher Elizabeth Spiegel (Ms. Vicary in the movie; she married after filming) is their coach, mentor, cheerleader and giver of wisdom.

"Truth isn't quite so simple as right and wrong," she tells the kids; chess, it turns out, is a gateway to thought, and a terrific way for students to learn to focus and solve problems.

Along the way, we're treated to the irresistible sight of hundreds of kids facing off two by two over chessboards in hotel ballrooms (the students look small but tough, like T-shirt-wearing gladiators) and, ultimately, a skinny middle-schooler clutching an enormous trophy. As each student's drama gets played out, "Brooklyn Castle" pulls us in, and when it's over you find yourself still wondering about the kids, and hoping they're succeeding. It's a charmer of a movie, and a welcome reminder of the importance of inspirational teachers in kids' lives.

Bloomberg News

Archaeologists are facing a possible murder mystery after discovering two 8,500-year-old human skeletons at the bottom of a rare Stone-Age well used by the first farmers in Israel’s Jezreel Valley.

The skeletal remains belonged to a woman aged about 19 and an older man, according to archaeologists who announced the discovery today in an e-mailed release. The well dates back to the Neolithic period, they said.

“How did they come to be in the well?” the Israel Antiquities Authority asked in the statement. “Was this an accident or perhaps a murder? As of now, the answer to this question remains a mystery.”

The excavation of ancient wells is critical to understanding the culture and economy of a period before the invention of pottery vessels and metallic objects, Omri Barzilai, head of the Prehistory Branch of the IAA, said.

The two oldest wells in the world were uncovered in Cyprus, and are about 1,000 years older than this one, according to the IAA. The Jezreel Valley well is the second from its period discovered in Israel, it said.

“The impressive well was connected to an ancient farming settlement, and it seems the inhabitants used it for their subsistence and living,” Yotam Tepper, the site’s excavation director said. “After these unknown individuals fell into the well, it was no longer used, for the simple reason that the water was contaminated.”

Sickle Blades

Objects found inside the well include flint sickle blades used for harvesting, arrowheads and stone tools, he said.

The well shows the quarrying ability of the site’s ancient inhabitants and the knowledge they had of local hydrology and geology, which enabled them to quarry the limestone bedrock down to the level of the water table, Tepper said.

“No doubt the quarrying of the well was a community effort that took a long time,” he said.

The well, which was uncovered in excavations before the enlarging of a highway by the National Roads Company, will be conserved and exhibited.

***********************************************************

I think the man and the woman were sacrifices, therefore, not precisely murder as we define it today in the Western world. The clue, or should I say clues, are the presence of flint sicle blades, arrowheads and stone tools found INSIDE THE WELL. It took a lot of effort to make these tools and implements back in the Stone Age, and one did not just casually toss them into the neighborhood well for the heck of it! One did not casually toss people into wells either. As the article noted, their bodies would have contaminated the water. Now, if the locals didn't KNOW that would be the result from throwing a couple of people into their water source, perhaps many of them died from drinking contaminated water after the fact. Did they have another water source? Did they move away and this was a final propitiating sacrifice to the Goddess of the Well or the Goddess of the Waters? Wonder what future excavation will reveal...

The team, led by one of the most prominent Bulgarian experts on Thracian archaeology, Prof. Diana Gergova, from the National Archaeology Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, BAS, made the discovery during excavations at the so-called Omurtag mount.

The researchers found fragments of a wooden box, containing charred bones and ashes, along with a number of extremely well-preserved golden objects, dated from the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century B. C.. They include four spiral gold bracelets, and a number of intricate applications like one which shows the head of a female goddess adorned with beads, applications on horse riding gear and a forehead covering in the shape of a horse head with a base shaped like a lion head. The objects weigh 1.5 kg, but the excavations continue.

The precious find also contains a ring, buttons and beads. Gergova explains that it seemed the treasure was wrapped in a gold-woven cloth because a number of gold threads were discovered nearby.

The Professor says these were, most likely, remnants from a ritual burial, adding the team expects to discover a huge burial ground, probably related to the funeral of the Gath ruler Kotela, one of the father-in-laws of Philip II of Macedon. She notes this is a unique find, never before discovered in Bulgaria.

According to her, the Omurtag mount is the biggest one in the Gath center, which was their religious and political capital while the Gath were the tribe that influenced the most western tribes such as the Celts.

Gergova expects the treasure will entice the Culture Ministry to finally fund in full this emblematic Thracian site, part of the archaeological reserve Sboryanovo with the Sveshtaritomb, which is on the world cultural-historical heritage list of UNESCO.

The Professor says the Omurtag mount must be turned into a museum where the excavated segment could become an exhibit hall.

This article fills in missing details from the prior article I posted, along with a very nice photograph that gives a good overview of the excavation, the four pillars marking the entrance to the Princess' tomb and the tombs of the high officials dug into a side "wall." There is a mystery: Why was Sheretnebty buried in this spot, and not with the rest of the royal family?
From Live Science

The tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess has been discovered south of Cairo hidden in bedrock and surrounded by a court of tombs belonging to four high officials.

Dating to 2500 B.C., the structure was built in the second half of the Fifth Dynasty, though archaeologists are puzzled as to why this princess was buried in Abusir South among tombs of non-royal officials. Most members of the Fifth Dynasty's royal family were buried 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) to the north, in the central part of Abusir or farther south in Saqqara.
(Saqqara holds a vast burial ground for the ancient capital Memphis and is home to the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser.)

The researchers aren't sure whether the remains of the princess are inside tomb, as the investigation is still in progress, Miroslav Bárta, director of the mission, told LiveScience. Even so, they also found several fragments of a false-door bearing the titles and the name of Sheretnebty, the king's daughter.

"By this unique discovery we open a completely new chapter in the history of Abusir and Saqqara necropolis," said Bárta, who heads the Czech mission to Egypt from the Czech Institute of Egyptology of the Charles University in Prague.

Bárta and colleagues think the ancient builders used a naturally existing step in the bedrock to create the princess' court, which extends down 13 feet (4 meters) and is surrounded by mastaba tombs above it. A mastaba is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb that forms a flat-roofed rectangular structure.
A limestone staircase descends from north to south along the burial court; four limestone pillars that once supported roofing blocks hold carved hieroglyphic inscriptions reading: "King's daughter of his body, his beloved, revered in front of the Great God, Sheretnebty."

The four surrounding tombs were cut into the rock of the south wall of the court and of a corridor that runs east from the southeast corner of the court. The two tombs in the south wall, dating to the time of Djedkare Isesi, the seventh ruler of the Fifth Dynasty, belong to Shepespuptah, the chief of justice of the Great House, and Duaptah, an inspector of the palace attendants. The other pair is situated along the corridor, with one belonging to an official named Ity.

"We are very fortunate to have this new window through which we can go back in time and to follow and document step by step life and death of several historically important individuals of the great pyramid age era," Bárta said in a statement.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

From The New York Times
The Egyptians call this harrassment, but it's second and sometimes third degree sexual assault and it's a disgusting commentary on the state of Muslim society. People who commit second and third degree sexual assault in the United States GO TO PRISON and are branded for life as SEXUAL PREDATORS. Why would any non-Egyptian woman EVER visit such a backward, filthy place? It seems the entire Middle East is hopelessly contaminated by the macho (etymology is traced to the concept of "stupid goat man") ethic and the precepts of yet one more bogus patriarchal religion that teaches fear of females more than the Devil. Too bad the supporters of the Christian Taliban and the supporters of the Muslim Taliban can't meet at Armageddon and slug it out with their fists, the worthless schmucks. Hopefully they would all kill each other and leave females in peace.

CAIRO — The young activists lingered on the streets around Tahrir Square, scrutinizing the crowds of holiday revelers. Suddenly, they charged, pushing people aside and chasing down a young man. As the captive thrashed to get away, the activists pounded his shoulders, flipped him around and spray-painted a message on his back: “I’m a harasser.”

Egypt’s streets have long been a perilous place for women, who are frequently heckled, grabbed, threatened and violated while the police look the other way. Now, during the country’s tumultuous transition from authoritarian rule, more and more groups are emerging to make protecting women — and shaming the do-nothing police — a cause.

“They’re now doing the undoable?” a police officer joked as he watched the vigilantes chase down the young man. The officer quickly went back to sipping his tea.

The attacks on women did not subside after the uprising. If anything, they became more visible as even the military was implicated in the assaults, stripping female protesters, threatening others with violence and subjecting activists to so-called virginity tests. During holidays, when Cairenes take to the streets to stroll and socialize, the attacks multiply.

But during the recent Id al-Adha holiday, some of the men were surprised to find they could no longer harass with impunity, a change brought about not just out of concern for women’s rights, but out of a frustration that the post-revolutionary government still, like the one before, was doing too little to protect its citizens.

At least three citizens groups patrolled busy sections of central Cairo during the holiday. The groups’ members, both men and women, shared the conviction that the authorities would not act against harassment unless the problem was forced into the public debate. They differed in their tactics: some activists criticized others for being too quick to resort to violence against suspects and encouraging vigilantism. One group leader compared the activists to the Guardian Angels in the United States.

“The harasser doesn’t see anyone who will hold him accountable,” said Omar Talaat, 16, who joined one of the patrols.

The years of President Hosni Mubarak’s rule were marked by official apathy, collusion in the assaults on women, or empty responses to the attacks, including police roundups of teenagers at Internet cafes for looking at pornography.

“The police did not take harassment seriously,” said Madiha el-Safty, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo. “People didn’t file complaints. It was always underreported.”

Mr. Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne, who portrayed herself as a champion of women’s rights, pretended the problem hardly existed. As reports of harassment grew in 2008, she said, “Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women.”

Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, has presided over two holidays, and many activists say there is no sign that the government is paying closer attention to the problem. But the work by the citizens groups may be having an effect: Last week, after the Id al-Adha holiday, Mr. Morsi’s spokesman announced that the government had received more than 1,000 reports of harassment, and said that the president had directed the Interior Ministry to investigate them.

Azza Soliman, the director of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, dismissed the president’s words as “weak.” During the holiday, she said, one of her sons was beaten on the subway after he tried to stop a man who was groping two foreign women. The police tried to stop him from filing a complaint. “The whole world is talking about harassment in our country,” Ms. Soliman said. “The Interior Ministry takes no action.”

For years, anti-harassment activists have worked to highlight the problems in Egypt, but the uprising seemed to give the effort more energy and urgency.

Over the holiday, the groups staked out different parts of Cairo’s downtown. One avoided any violence, forming human chains between women and their tormentors. The other group forcefully confronted men and boys it suspected of harassment, smacking around suspects before hauling them off to a police station.

One of that group’s founders, Sherine Badr el-Din, 30, started her work as an anti-harassment activist by asking men to get off the women-only cars on the Cairo subway, regarded as a safe zone. When they refused, she videotaped them and posted their pictures on the Internet, she said.

Last summer, one of the men attacked her. “I wanted to file a case, but the police officer refused, claiming they were only there to monitor the train schedules.” She said the group escalated its tactics out of frustration, after the police started releasing suspects the group had caught.

“Violence is not our method,” she said. “But the pressure was tremendous.”

Last week, as the group gathered near Tahrir Square, one member had what looked like a stun gun, and another shook a can of spray paint. Most participants were men, and some wore fluorescent green vests, with the words “combating harassment” written on the back.

They mused on the reasons for the frequency of the attacks on their sisters, mothers and friends, finding no sure answer in the blame often laid on poverty or religion, society’s indifference or the state’s contagious chauvinism.

They seemed more certain of the solution, as they plunged into the holiday crowds over several evenings. Some bystanders were supportive. But when violence broke out, there was less support. “I will tell the government on you,” one man screamed as the activists wrestled with a suspect.

Sometimes the patrol acted after seeing a woman being groped. At other times, it justified its attacks as preventive.

Two boys on a scooter hardly knew what hit them. One minute, they were driving along the Nile Corniche, saying something — maybe lewd, maybe not — to two girls strolling on the sidewalk. The next, they were being hauled off the scooter by the men in green vests. The melee that broke out afterward stopped traffic on one of downtown’s busiest roadways, before the police chased the patrol members off.

Afterward, Muhaab Selim, 23, a member of the group, could barely contain his anger. “Why do I have to wait until he touches them?” he yelled. “Why do people defend the harassers?”

By the end of the holidays, one of the group’s leaders, Muhammad Taimoor, 22, had been arrested after fighting with a suspect on the subway. Even so, he called the weekend a success. “We caught some harassers, sprayed them with paint and published their pictures everywhere,” Mr. Taimoor said. “The Interior Ministry wasn’t cooperating with us at all. They weren’t protecting women in the streets.”

While Mr. Taimoor and his colleagues were on patrol, another group, called Imprint, was in a nearby square. Nihal Saad Zaghloul, 27, an activist with the group, said its members stopped more than 30 men who were trying to harass women.

When the group believes someone is being harassed, some members form a wall between the attacker and the victim, while others take the woman to safety. “We don’t push back, and we don’t fight,” Ms. Zaghloul said. They ask police officers to be present, in case the woman wants to file a report.

Ms. Zaghloul, who became active after she and a friend were assaulted, was less critical of the patrol officers than some of the other activists. “They are understaffed, and at the same time, they are part of a society that always blames women, although they know it’s wrong.” She worried that the other group’s methods would alienate the public.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Ancient wine presses found in Jerusalem thanks to a man who walked his dog.

By Gil Ronen

First Publish: 10/30/2012, 2:56 PM

Ancient wine presses have been found in Jerusalem – and will soon be part of a new park – thanks to a resident of Ramot who walked his dog several years ago. The dog fell into a hole and had to be rescued. It later turned out that there are more holes in the vicinity, and that a meaningful archaeological discovery had been made.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat recently inaugurated the designated park, which is planned to become an open Biblical tourist park. The park, which will occupy 30,250 square meters, is located north of Jerusalem Park and northwest of Mitzpe Naftoakh nature park,

Among the discoveries at the location are wine presses from the days of the First Temple, as well as pottery shards and two bronze coins from the Second Temple times. Massive digging at the location has been carried out by the authorities with the participation of local residents and schoolchildren.

A full reconstruction of the wine presses is planned, under the supervision of renowned archaeologist Amichai Mazar.

Rush Limbaugh caused controversy earlier this year when he called a female student lawyer a slut for using birth control paid for by her health insurance. What would Rush think about these slutty Neanderthals who apparently slept around enough to deposit their DNA into just about every extent human "race" known today, except for those in sub-Saharan Africa -- you know, the continent with countries everyone else except the Iranians and the Chinese pretend doesn't exist.

QUERY: How can anyone say so-called Neanderthals are "extinct" when a large majority of so-called modern humans today carry 3 to 4% of their DNA within us?

The only modern humans whose ancestors did not interbreed with Neanderthals are apparently sub-Saharan Africans, researchers say.

New findings suggest modern North Africans carry genetic traces from Neanderthals, modern humanity's closest known extinct relatives.

Although modern humans are the only surviving members of the human lineage, others once roamed the Earth, including the Neanderthals. Genetic analysis of these extinct lineages’ fossils has revealed they once interbred with our ancestors, with recent estimates suggesting that Neanderthal DNA made up 1 percent to 4 percent of modern Eurasian genomes. Although this sex apparently only rarely produced offspring, this mixing was enough to endow some people with the robust immune systems they enjoy today.

The Neanderthal genome revealed that people outside Africa share more genetic mutations with Neanderthalsthan Africans do. One possible explanation is that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals mostly after the modern lineage began appearing outside Africa at least 100,000 years ago. Another, more complex scenario is that an African group ancestral to both Neanderthals and certain modern human populations genetically split from other Africans beginning about 230,000 years ago. This group then stayed genetically distinct until it eventually left Africa.

To shed light on why Neanderthals appear most closely related to people outside Africa, scientists analyzed North Africans. Some researchers had suggested these groups were the sources of the out-of-Africa migrations that ultimately spread humans around the globe.

The researchers focused on 780,000 genetic variants in 125 people representing seven different North African locations. They found North Africans had dramatically more genetic variants linked with Neanderthals than sub-Saharan Africans did. The level of genetic variants that North Africans share with Neanderthals is on par with that seen in modern Eurasians.

The scientists also found this Neanderthal genetic signal was higher in North African populations whose ancestors had relatively little recent interbreeding with modern Near Eastern or European peoples. That suggests the signal came directly from ancient mixing with Neanderthals, and not recent interbreeding with other modern humans whose ancestors might have interbred with Neanderthals.

"The only modern populations without Neanderthal admixture are the sub-Saharan groups," said researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox, a paleogeneticist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at Barcelona, Spain.

The researchers say their findings do not suggest that Neanderthals entered Africa and made intimate contact with ancient North Africans. Rather, "what we are saying is that the contact took place outside Africa, likely in the Near East, and that there was a back migration into Africa of some groups that peopled North Africa, likely replacing or assimilating some ancestral populations," Lalueza-Fox told LiveScience.

This research also suggests that North African groups were not the source of the out-of-Africa migrations. Rather, other groups, perhaps out of East Africa, might have led this diaspora.
The scientists detailed their findings Oct. 17 in the journal PLoS ONE.

Exciting news! Wonder how long it will be before the Islamists now in power in Egypt sell the REAL artifacts on the illegal antiquities market? The original article has several photographs of impressive sculptures and statues, unfortunately mostly photographed out of context and not always specifically identified with a particular tomb. Better save them now, I expect they may soon disappear, just like the antiquities depicted in them.

Czech archaeologists have unearthed the 4,500-year-old tomb of a Pharaonic princess south of Cairo, in a finding that suggests other undiscovered tombs may be in the area, an official from Egypt's antiquities ministry said Saturday.

This Oct. 11, 2012 photo released Friday, Nov. 2, 2012 by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, shows details of hieroglyphic inscriptions on one of four limestone columns in the recently discovered antechamber to the tomb of a pharaonic princess, in the Abusir region, south of Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim said Czech archaeologists have unearthed the tomb of Shert Nebti's, a pharaonic princess, daughter of King Men Salbo, dating from the fifth dynasty (around 2500 BC) along with four other tombs of "high ranking officials."
(AP Photo/Egypt's Supreme Council Of Antiquities)

Mohammed El-Bialy, who heads the Egyptian and Greco-Roman Antiquities department at the Antiquities Ministry, said that Princess Shert Nebti's burial site is surrounded by the tombs of four high officials from the Fifth Dynasty dating to around 2,500 BC in the Abu Sir complex near the famed step pyramid of Saqqara. "Discoveries are ongoing" at Abu Sir, El-Bialy said, adding that the excavation was in a "very early stage" and that the site was closed to the public. Inscriptions on the four limestone pillars of the Princess' tomb indicate that she is the daughter of King Men Salbo. [Who? Don't see him on the King List...]

"She is the daughter of the king, but only her tomb is there [does this mean her remains aren't there?], surrounded by the four officials, so the question is, are we going to discover other tombs around hers in the near future? We don't know anything about her father, the king, or her mother, but hope that future discoveries will answer these questions," El-Bialy said.

On Friday, Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said that the antechamber to the princess' tomb includes four limestone columns and hieroglyphic inscriptions. The current excavation has also unearthed an antechamber containing the sarcophagi of the four officials and statues of men, women, and a child, he said in a statement.

The Czech team's discovery marks the "start of a new chapter" in the history of the burial sites of Abu Sir and Saqqara, Ibrahim added. The archaeologists working at the site are from the Czech Institute of Egyptology, which is funded by the Charles University of Prague. Their excavation began this month.

The discovery comes weeks after the Egyptian government reopened a pyramid and a complex of tombs that had been closed for restoration work for a decade. Egypt's vital tourism industry has suffered from the country's internal unrest in the wake of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak. A delegation from the International Monetary Fund is currently in Egypt for negotiations over a $4.8 billion loan aimed at bolstering the country's ailing economy.

[Well, the economy wouldn't be ailing if the Islamists weren't in power. American tourists especially aren't going to be returning to Egypt in droves any time soon - not when unemployed government supported "protesters" are out daily being videotaped and broadcast on the nightly news and the internet screaming DEATH TO AMERICA! Yeah, blame Americans for everything, and then expect them to be tourists in your country spending billions of dollars? LOL!]

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"Advanced Chess" Leon 2002

About Me

I'm one of the founders of Goddesschess, which went online May 6, 1999. I earned an under-graduate degree in history and economics going to college part-time nights, weekends and summer school while working full-time, and went on to earn a post-graduate degree (J.D.) I love the challenge of research, and spend my spare time reading and writing about my favorite subjects, travelling and working in my gardens. My family and my friends are most important in my life. For the second half of my life, I'm focusing on "doable" things to help local chess initiatives, starting in my own home town. And I'm experiencing a sort of personal "Renaissance" that is leaving me rather breathless...